1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a slide manipulation device, such as a fader or a mixer, to set a parameter of an electronic musical instrument or a sound facility through a sliding movement of a manipulator, and relates to a slide control console including a plurality of slide manipulation devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
A fader is widely used as such a slide manipulation device. A mixer including a plurality of faders is widely used as a slide control console. The fader is provided for setting control parameters, such as sound volume, sound quality, and sound effect, in response to the slide position of a manipulator, such as a knob, mounted at the upper part of a box-shaped main body, through the sliding movement of the manipulator. The sliding movement of the manipulator may be performed manually or in a motor-driven manner. An electronic musical instrument or a sound facility performs various kinds of control based on control signals transmitted from the faders. For this reason, each of the faders is connected to a circuit board having electronic parts or circuits to set and transmit parameters. A mixer includes a plurality of faders mounted therein. According to circumstances, the mixer may include various sound control parts. The mixer is used to control various sound parameters by manipulators disposed at a panel surface of the mixer.
A conventional fader includes a board disposed in a box-shaped main body. For example, a fader disclosed in Patent Reference 1 is constructed in a structure in which a mover coupled to a knob is received in the box-shaped main body, and the board is mounted to the inside surface of a side wall of the main body. Also, a slide manipulation device disclosed in Patent Reference 2 is constructed in a structure in which a board is mounted to a gondola configured to slide in a box-shaped main body. A device disclosed in Patent Reference 3 is constructed in a structure in which boards are individually mounted to a panel of a mixer in the vicinity of faders mounted to the mixer.    [Patent Reference 1] Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2002-8907 (Paragraph 0013)    [Patent Reference 2] Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2007-134646 (Paragraph 0042)    [Patent Reference 3] Japanese Patent Publication No. 3716822 (Paragraphs 0014 and 0022)
However, the above-described fader has a problem in view of mounting dimension and function of the fader. That is, in the device disclosed in Patent Reference 1, the board is mounted to the inside surface of the side wall of the main body of the fader, with the result that heat generated from the board easily accumulates in the main body. In order to avoid this problem, therefore, it is required to increase the capacity of the main body of the fader, in particular the dimension of the board in the thickness direction of the board.
The manipulation surface above the fader is generally elongated in the slide direction of the manipulator. Therefore, the increase in dimension of the board in the thickness direction of the board results the increase in the direction (the lateral direction of the fader) perpendicular to the longitudinal direction of the board. In a structure in which a plurality of faders are included as in the mixer, the total dimension considerably increases when the dimension of the respective faders increases in the lateral direction of the respective faders.
Also, in the device disclosed in Patent Reference 2, the board is mounted to the gondola configured to slide in the main body of the fader, with the result that the dimension of the board is limited by the gondola, and therefore, the function of a circuit board is inevitably restrained. On the other hand, the construction of the board in a multiple-layer structure is required to increase the area of the board and thus improve the function of the board circuit, which leads to the increase in dimension of the main body of the fader, in which the board is received, in the lateral direction of the main body of the fader.
In the device disclosed in Patent Reference 3, the boards are individually mounted to the panel of the mixer while being separated from the faders, with the result that spaces for the coupling between the faders and the panel and the coupling between the boards and the panel are required, and therefore, the mounting distance of each fader in the lateral direction increases.
Therefore, even in any cases, the increase in space necessary to accommodate the fader and thus the increase in size of the mixer are inevitably caused. This problem is similarly caused in another slide manipulation device to set a parameter of an electronic musical instrument or a sound facility through the sliding movement of a manipulator. Furthermore, This problem is also caused in a slide control console including such slide manipulation devices.